Conventional content control software and services are designed to control what content delivered over the Internet may be viewed or blocked from viewing. Generally, access to such controlled content can be restricted at various levels. For instance, a firewall may be used to block access to certain websites or a timer may be set up at a user's computer to limit the amount of time that an application may be used. Additionally, filters such as e-mail filters and browser-based filters may be used.
However, such content control software and services are often inadequate to control content downloaded by users to their computers. This can be problematic for enterprises wanting to retain control over enterprise content downloaded to devices that may or may not be owned by the enterprises.
Additionally, provisioning content may require significant database resources. A procedure known as “sharding” has been used to scale databases beyond what a single server or cluster or servers can handle. In sharding, a single large database is fragmented or sharded into multiple smaller databases that operate virtually independently. Collectively, the shards appear to form a single, very large database. However, handling relationships between objects that may be in separate shards can be problematic.